As one team returns, another leaves for Haiti

Monday

Mar 29, 2010 at 12:25 PM

Naomi KingStaff Writer

HOUMA — A team of 13 nurses, physical therapists and surgeons left Saturday for a weeklong medical mission in Haiti, about a month after another local surgical team visited the earthquake-stricken country.Mark Peters, a plastic surgeon from Houma, said the devastation from the January earthquake, though vast, did not mean defeat for Haiti’s people.“How resilient, how strong the people were,” Peters said, adding that their mentality is one mirrored by Cajuns. “This is our home. This is what we’re going to do. I can’t rely on somebody else.”But the vast number of amputations Haitians have undergone and the ongoing fear of buildings are legacies for that country’s future generations, said Peters and Chantel Charpentier, a nurse practitioner who works in Peters’ Houma office. Their team also included anesthetist Ernie Theriot and nurses Debbie Gill, Carol Haydel and Mary Plaisance.The team was based in one hospital, but Peters performed 25 surgeries over one week in three hospitals. The most common injuries requiring treatment were wounds sustained while trapped in rubble, Charpentier said.One of the last girls they treated was trapped for three days. Another 12-year-old girl was so dehydrated the team couldn’t operate on her. Thankfully a group of Baptist volunteers from North Carolina fed patients, Charpentier said.The trip had its darker moments, too. One 19-year-old man had dead muscle in his calf following an injury. Peters knew the best thing was to amputate at the knee to save the rest of his leg and his overall health.“That night they left the hospital,” Peters said of the man and his father. “I felt terrible. But that’s the only answer. That’s the only answer I could give this kid.”Families always accompanied a patient, helped feed them and changed their bandages, Charpentier and Peters said. While most patients embraced the surgical team, the Americans also saw that many patients were still afraid to sleep indoors. They recovered from surgeries in outdoor tents numbered like hospital rooms.Tents are needed, Peters and Charpentier said, because Haiti’s rainy season is about to start. Peters established the nonprofit Houma for Haiti to collect donations for tents and other needs. Unfortunately his team couldn’t take all the protein powder and Meals Ready to Eat that were donated. They hope to send the supplies and tents with another surgical team to avoid shipment costs.The doctors heading up the current Haiti trip set up a fundraising account called the Orthopaedic Sports Specialists of Louisiana Haiti Relief Fund. David Elias and Jason Higgins, orthopaedic surgeons at Orthopaedic Sports Specialists of Louisiana in Thibodaux, organized their medical mission through New Orleans’ Dr. Frederic Wilson of Ochsner. Donations have come in through Thibodaux Regional Medical Center, patients and local shipbuilder Edison Chouest. The Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux bought the group’s plane tickets.The Thibodaux team expects to fix incorrectly healed fractures, Elias, 36, said. The bones must be rebroken and set straight, he said. “We’re told they’ll need orthopaedic treatments up to 18 months,” Elias said of the injuries.Even the everyday medical needs will have to be addressed because hospitals are operating without regular supplies and utilities.“There’s still a big unknown of what we’re going to do,” Elias said.The 13-member team will work out of St. Damien Hospital, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The hospital, which is the only free pediatric hospital in Haiti, has been turned into a mass-care unit, said Caroline Franz, a Houma pediatric physical therapist.Recovering from an amputation takes months, she said. Patients must readjust their center of balance because weight is distributed differently without a limb.“I’m sure I’m going to be dealing with lots of children who are injured,” Franz said of her expectations. “From what I hear, the volume of patients were going to see is pretty insane.”The trip will be especially memorable for Franz because she’s turning 32 while in Haiti.“What a gift to go help people,” Franz said. “That’s why I’m in the profession I’m in.”Also on the team in Haiti this week:- Claire Clement, RN.- Cheryl Thomas, RN and wound-care specialist.- Denise Knight, RN.- Scott Ordoyne, RN.- Elise Morvant, anesthesiologist.- Kevin Anderson, CRNA.- Deborah Pentz, anesthesia assistant.- Steven Landry, physical therapist.- Craig Pate, physical therapist.- Eddie Himel, physical therapist.

Staff Writer Naomi King can be reached at 857-2209 or naomi.king@houmatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @HoumaGov.